A POWERFUL typhoon killed 11 people and left more than 300 injured in the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in a quarter century with thousands stranded at a major airport because of storm damage.

Aerial pictures show the devastation left across Japan after powerful gusts ripped sheeting from rooftops, overturned trucks on bridges and swept a tanker anchored in Osaka Bay into a bridge to Kansai International Airport, the region's main international gateway and a national transport hub.

The damage to the bridge left the artificial island temporarily cut off, stranding 3,000 travellers and staff overnight.

Other pictures show damaged traffic boards and telecommunication relay poles after they were brought down by strong winds in Osaka.

The typhoon caused major damage to vehicles on the road. Before it made landfall, some drivers abandoned their vehicles for fear of potentially-fatal wind gusts. On one bridge, two lorries were tipped on their sides.

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People were hit by flying objects or buried under collapsed buildings as the storm devoured Japan's Osaka prefecture and Shiga prefecture.

Violent winds also ripped away part of the ceiling from Kyoto station and toppled scaffolding on a building in Osaka. Elsewhere, cars were turned on their sides and strewn across roads.

Jebi became the first typhoon categorised as “very strong” by the weather agency to make landfall on Japan’s main islands since 1993, when a powerful typhoon left 48 people dead or missing.

Jebi, or "swallow" in Korean, was briefly a super typhoon and is the most powerful storm to hit Japan in 25 years.

Fire breaks up from used cars storage site after the are is submerged due to high tide (Image: Getty)

It follows heavy rains, landslides, floods and record-breaking heat that killed hundreds of people this summer.

An airport company started to transfer some 3,000 stranded passengers by boats from a flooded airport, the government said today, as more than a million homes were without power.

Three high-speed boats linking two airports across Osaka Bay carried stranded passengers and others every 15 to 20 minutes, with one boat accommodating 110 people at a time.

More one million households were without power in Osaka and its surrounding areas at 7.30am on Wednesday (2230 BST Tuesday) and a number of flights and some trains were cancelled.

Damaged traffic boards and telecommunication relay poles are seen after they were brought down (Image: Getty)

Winds that in many places gusted to the highest ever recorded in Japan, according to the Japanese Meteorological Agency, left a swathe of damage, with fruit and vegetables, many about to be harvested, hit especially hard.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was criticised in July for an initially slow response to devastating floods that month, posted updates on the rescue efforts at Kansai.

Jebi's course brought it close to parts of western Japan hit by rains and flooding in July that killed more than 200 people, but most of the damage this time appeared to be from the wind.

A scaffolding collapsed due to strong winds generated by typhoon Jebi in Osaka (Image: EPA)

Vehicles damaged by Typhoon Jebi are seen in Osaka (Image: EPA)

A tanker collides with a connection bridge between Kansai International Airport and mainland (Image: Getty)